Another Newroz in the Northern Kurdistan: A Historic Appeal and Peace Hopes

The first concrete steps declared in Abdullah Öcalan's historical message announced to huge crowds in Amed (Turkey's Kurdish province Diyarbakır) on March 21st during the Kurdish Newroz celebrations have turned out to be a blossom of peace hopes throughout the Northern Kurdistan where a 30-year dirty war between the Turkish Military and the PKK guerrilla had cast dark shadows. More than one million people, gathered to hear the message read out both in Turkish and Kurdish, reacted tremendously content but cautious. For the first time Newroz was freely being celebrated under the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan - Kurdistan Workers' Party) flags and the posters of its jailed heroic leader Öcalan.

Newroz time, which had already adopted an intense political connotation in the Northern Kurdistan within Turkish frontiers leaving far behind its real meaning of a traditional spring festival, was chosen by Öcalan after long messages exchanged between him and his obedient followers in charge, both in the PKK bases located in the mountainous sides of the Kurdistan Regional Government in the Northern Iraq as well as the growing Diaspora in Europe. Öcalan himself, in fact, had already declared from İmralı Island (where he has been jailed since 1999) that "a historical message" would be delivered during the Newroz festival.

Yet the reaction from the Turkish public was pretty different and highly diverse. Even though most people were fed up with this never ending conflict which had left more than 40 thousand lives and inestimable psychological and material damage, it was incomprehensible for most Turks how a man who had long been labelled as "baby killer, bloody-handed terrorist" now converted into a chief negotiator who had an absolute authority and a "terrorist group", the PKK, became the most legitimate party. The confusion left its place to anger and frustration among dominant Kemalist nationalist fractions as well as ultra nationalist groups.

In his message Öcalan clearly stated the first action to be taken by Kurdish militia. After long references to all the oppressed people of the Mid-East and Asia, and the historical transformation of Anatolia's social and cultural structure, he declared the end of "armed resistance" giving a start to a new democratic struggle calling all armed elements of the PKK to deploy out of the Turkish borders, most probably referring to Northern Iraq though he did not explicitly indicate this in his message.

Öcalan's message is worthy enough to analyze as it was not targeted only at Kurds whose uprising and struggle was changing form, but also Turks whose sensitivities and anxieties were taken into consideration. The melting pot which Öcalan was discursively trying to construct was full of references to the Muslim faith as well as other well-respected religious figures, traditional shared values as well as such Western notions as democracy, freedom and equality.

Some interpreted those references as "Öcalan's dance with moderately Islamist conservative governing AKP whereas some found them to be a quite radical break-away from the PKK's ideological line. Bearing in mind the PKK's early manifestos and programs, there is no doubt that Öcalan's message was surprisingly moderate, and most points he makes are quite reasonable in terms of democratic rights. In fact, what Öcalan dares to do is to just draw a nearly objective socio-cultural portrait of Anatolia and propose to form a feasible and inclusive democratic model for Turkey. The moderate discourse of the message, in that sense, should not be surprising at all. Ultimately, this is supposed to be a first concrete step within a long peace negotiation, and in this crucial early stage idealistic demands or ringing victory bells would hardly be convenient.

Maybe the most remarkable and striking part of the Newroz festival was the atmosphere of the crowds in Amed. Harshly criticized by the main opposition parties in the Turkish National Assembly and by other nationalist factions it was crystal clear that the PKK had overwhelming social legitimacy as a political organization. There cannot be such event that assembles more than one million people in a huge area waving PKK flags and performing traditional Kurdish dances under Öcalan's posters. Unlike other groups, which share more or less a similar ideological orientation, it is undoubtedly an incredibly strong notion of leadership within Kurdish popular movement. This phenomenon may be explained by focusing on the traditional social structure of Kurdistan and the PKK's deep impact on this, introducing and enforcing a peculiar form of class struggle in an unindustrialized region where squirearchy of agha (extremely powerful landlords) and tribal kinship structure (aşiret) have widely been observed or basically due to the characteristic of all Middle Eastern cultures in which absolute obedience to a one-person reign is common. There are many hypotheses and arguments over the issue, but whatever the reason is, it is an undeniable fact Öcalan's leadership in the Northern Kurdistan and his perception as a national hero, although in the rest of Turkey the same figure is labelled as the number one threat to the national unity and head of a felonious terrorist group carrying out mortal attacks on civilians. Thirty years of constant propaganda through mass media and unrevealed hidden facts belonging to the 1990s war that took place in Kurdish provinces under the State of Emergency, constructed such a horrific image that it is so difficult to convince Turks that Öcalan is an indispensable figure in order to achieve a lasting and durable peace.

The crowds gathered under the PKK flags also show that the organization obtains tremendous public support achieving a symbolic victory against the State. The PKK, even though it argues the very contrary, has always been aware that it is impossible to win an armed confrontation against a State with an enormous military capacity. However, the physical (military operations, raids, creation of counter-guerrilla units, village guards etc.) and symbolic violence (prohibition of the linguistic and cultural rights, imposition of national symbols such as the flag, language, national anthem etc.) carried out unsuccessfully in terms of legitimacy for decades by the State, and the counter-violence of the PKK as response, which has been seen as quite legitimate by most Kurds, has put the State's monopoly in the Northern Kurdistan into question. Another power centre was created as a result of the consequences of the armed confrontation between the guerrilla and the military and, consequently, the latter has gradually become a weak social actor with a strong physical power. In time, the symbolic and physical violence put in practice by the State has turned out to be the symbolic victory of the PKK as a legitimate political actor.

Deployment of the PKK militias in Northern Iraq, creation of safe haven corridors, suspension of military raids during the deployment and a possible legal guarantee are by all means extraordinary but imprescindible efforts to carry on resolving technical questions of this immature peace process. Other, and far more complicated technical questions such as democratic autonomy demilitarization, a possible general amnesty, immediate release of the KCK (Koma Civakên Kurdistan - Union of Communities in Kurdistan) detainees etc. are still pending and require some radical constitutional changes. Handing over the arms and dissolution of the armed guerrilla units are out of question yet and cannot be open to debate unless core legal guarantees are provided under the new constitution. Dealing with a 30-year armed confrontation with enormous vital consequences, lack of trust and fragile sensibilities of both Turkish and Kurdish communities, and not to mention high risk of sabotage by both parties of the conflict, as well as the third part having certain which cannot be underestimated, such a transition period will obviously be very long and troubled, and the only clear point is that there is no way back anymore.

Associate

Barış Tuğrul is a researcher working at the Faculty of Communication at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. He is currently working at the University of Basque Country as visiting fellow. His main research interests are in political violence, ethnic and religious conflicts and conflict prevention strategies. Specific cases he has been dealing with are the Basque and Kurdish armed conflicts.

Education

Ph.D in Political Sociology at Complutense University of Madrid and the EHESS Paris, M.A. in International Relations, M.A. in Sociology at Complutense University, B.A. in Communication Sciences at Ankara University.

Languages

English, Spanish, French, Turkish

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